Senate Speaker Ron RamseyNASHVILLE - Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey said Thursday that GOP majority lawmakers should consider holding their first veto override session in 13 years in the event fellow Republican Gov. Bill Haslam vetoes any bills.
Stressing "it's nothing personal," the Senate speaker said lawmakers in the past held one-day sessions 30 days after winding up their annual business so they could act in the event a governor vetoed one of their bills.
"I think it's something that ought to be done," Ramsey said, calling it a "good government" move to schedule one at the end of every two-year General Assembly. He noted the Tennessee Constitution provides for a veto override.
If a governor vetoes a bill during lawmakers' first annual meeting, they can always come back and override it the following year. But when a General Assembly adjourns "sine die," or permanently, at the end of their second year, lawmakers have no ability to come back, Ramsey said.
According to Article III Section 18 of the Tennessee Constitution, governors have 10 days, excluding Sundays, once a bill reaches his desk to decide whether to sign it, allow it to be become law without his signature or veto it.
This is the second year of the 108th General Assembly. Lawmakers are hoping to wrap up the current session by mid-to-late April and head into this year's elections. So if Haslam vetoes one of the bills they pass, they're just out of luck.
In order to have a veto override session, lawmakers would have to pass a resolution providing for a recess to come back before adjourning permanently. Technically, they would still be in session.
Ramsey said he has broached the topic of a veto override session with House Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, but not Haslam. He said he isn't sure Harwell is interested.
Looking at reporters, he said he probably needed to call Haslam since reporters were about to report his comments.
Last year, Haslam issued his first veto on an "ag gag" bill that critics charged was an effort to stymie animal abuse investigations conducted by the United States Humane Association of the state's Tennessee Walking Horse industry that resulted in several convictions.
One bill that could be a candidate for a veto this year is a bill that bars governments from banning handgun-carry permit holders to go armed in local parks, ballfields and playgrounds.
It takes a simple constitutional majority of 50 votes in the 99-member House and 17 votes in the 33-member Senate to override a veto. That's the same number of votes it takes to pass a bill to start with.
Asked about Ramsey's comments, Haslam spokesman David Smith said in an email "that's the General Assembly's prerogative, and that's the way the system is set up."